Wedding Dress

I think I have found the dress I'll wear to my sister's wedding in December.

It's been a touch choice but I wanted something vintage and with long sleeves as it will be fricking December. Looking at the photo I can't help noticing it is pretty much transparent so I'll need a slip from somewhere. Can you get long sleeved ones? Intriguing. I got it from Etsy.

I'll have to maintain vigilance in looking for a suitable belt. The one in the photo was just the closest to hand. A dark brown leather one would seem suitable.

Yesterday I picked up a UFO which I started as a wedding present for friends who have just celebrated their third anniversary. I was making a double bed sized blanket in squares but doing it in strips so the only joining was lengthwise along the long strip edges. "Only". This "only" joining was my epic task yesterday. I had done four strips but have only sewn three into the blanket (now single bed sized) and will use the other to make a matching cushion. Once I had mattress stitched those bad boys I found myself needing to do an edging so have picked up at least a gabillion stitches, possibly two gabillion, around the edge on single Denise needle. I used one of the interchangable crochet hooks for the task and when I went to swap in the 4mm tips remembered I hadn't got any as they had vanished into a pile of WIP and were proving hard to locate.

I gave in and went to Denise's website. I did look in the UK but couldn't find anyone selling just the tips without the cords, of which I have many. I adore Denise needles anyway but then to order from them in america and find they only charge $3.50 international postage if you're just getting tips? That drives it into frenzied adoration. A UK blog I follow was promoting some delectable gradient dyed fabric and I went over to etsy to have a look. A FQ of the fabric was about £4.50 which is pretty steep but it is artisan. I then looked at the postage - £11 (not $11 even). Hello? £11 postage for something that weighs perhaps 30g? Goodbye etsy shop and potential sale. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of a way to quantify how excessive postage decreases sales. Actually I don't really wonder. It's kind of a boring topic really. Forget I mentioned it.

This has been a pretty expensive weekend, although in a pretty good way.

I joined! I had a free day pass on Tuesday and checked out how busy the gym was at 7.30 am (eek) and 5.30pm and the answer was 'not very'. It's a Council run gym so reasonably priced and a month at a time so no mental contracts. I went again this morning (sunday at 9.30am I would have thought was a pretty peak time) and there were only 3 others there. I can't run (boo) but the cross trainer means cardio while keeping my feet flat and there's no impact. I'm back on the Couch to 5K system I was using last year and it's easy to simulate running and walking speeds on the cross trainer so is working well. I've done 1.1 and 1.2km respectively and am pretty happy with that, despite Pooch telling me his boss does 23km every weekend. Some people *are* just weird. 

It seems weird not to have more photos to post when I've been crafting so much but then the other things I've been doing are a surprise in cotton and a surprise in cross-stitch so no blogging about those. Plus I continue on the shawl for Nic's wedding which is basically looking much like it did before but more voluminous. Meanwhile in London we are on final countdown for the Olympics. I am very pleased about all the regeneration that has gone on but wish we could have just done that without spending all this money on drivel.

They still look like wisdom teeth to me. Boris's voice BOOMS out of the station intercom when you travel making everyone jumping and encouraging us all to be cheerful about the impending disaster which will be rush hour. The tube system barely copes as it is. The mind boggles at how it will be. Which is why I am very happy to be going away for the first week. I offered my flat to p/hop for the week having had no luck renting it out. Someone has taken it so in return for a donation will be in residence for that week. It is the daughter of a knitter rather than the knitter themselves and so I fairly confident my stash is safe.

I am very keen on the idea of home swaps for holidays and so on and don't worry about security on the basis that you're much more likely to die getting out of the bath than you are to be involved in a terror attack, and therefore in my mind you're more likely to be subject to a home invasion by a general robber than have all your stuff stolen by a house swapper. The only time this does worry me is when I wonder what would happen if I swapped with a knitter. Could they seriously resist my stash? Would any of my books be safe? Should I hide the needles?

Source: someecards.com via Alex on Pinterest